By Brian LeBlanc
NCSportsTalk.com - Puck Drops
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A tough week continues tonight for the Canes. After facing the Capitals (#1 in the East) and Penguins (#4) on back to back nights, earning three of a possible four points, the Canes face the #4 team in the other conference tonight. And if you claim that, before the season, you had the Phoenix Coyotes sitting fourth in the Western Conference on March 13, you're lying.
The Coyotes have outplayed even the most optimistic expectations this year, following an offseason of turmoil when it looked as if they had loaded up the moving vans and set sail for Winnipeg, Hamilton, Thunder Bay or just about any other Canadian outpost. The Dallas Stars' loss is certainly the Coyotes' gain, as after the Stars surprisingly jettisoned coach Dave Tippett in the offseason the Coyotes snapped him up, and he is now the clubhouse leader for the Jack Adams Trophy.
The Canes and Coyotes only hook up this one time, and the Coyotes kick off a four-game swing through the Southeast Division tonight that continues tomorrow in Atlanta. Brandon Sutter will miss the game after suffering a lower-body injury (leg), meaning Jerome Samson will make his second appearance with the Canes this season. He will play on a line with Zach Boychuk and Rod Brind'Amour, and Tom Kostopoulos will move to a new line with Patrick Dwyer and Sergei Samsonov. Two nights after making 37 saves against the Penguins, Justin Peters will be back in net for the Canes tonight.
Can the Canes make it nine in a row at the RBC Center? We're about to find out...
2:15 1st: Peters had to be big early, making a kick save on Matthew Lombardi off a tricky wrister from the low slot. He's lucky that the puck rolled off Lombardi's stick a bit, because I'm not sure he was in position to actually make the save if it was on target.
3:59 1st: Coyotes lead 1-0; Stempniak 18 (Fiddler) For the third straight game, the Canes have given up the first goal of the night. Joni Pitkanen coughed up the puck under pressure from Vernon Fiddler behind the net, and Fiddler found Lee Stempniak for a wraparound shot that took advantage of Peters being just barely out of position on the far post. It's Stempniak's fourth goal in as many games since being traded from Toronto at the trade deadline.
7:58 1st: For the second straight game, Erik Cole was the recipient of a pass to set up a breakaway. For the second straight game, he shot it right into the goalie's right pad. Almost not worth mentioning, isn't it?
13:36 1st: Could have been a tie game after a beautiful piece of stickhandling from Jerome Samson, in his third game of the year. Streaking down the right side, Samson danced the puck around two Coyotes defenders and created a two-on-one all by himself that nearly generated a goal on a Rod Brind'Amour rebound chance. Samson was absolutely flying down the wing, and probably deserved a point just based on his effort there.
14:01 1st: And then Samson took a seat for four minutes courtesy of a high stick on Sami Lepisto. Fate can be cruel, no?
15:59 1st: Coyotes lead 2-0; Stempniak 19 (Jovanovski, Aucoin) (pp) The first half of the double-minor burned the Canes. Stempniak potted his second of the night on a screen shot from the top of the slot through about four players and high to Peters' glove side to double the Coyotes' lead. The Canes are going to need some major help if they want to win this game, since the Coyotes have only lost three times this year after scoring first.
End 1st: It's also noteworthy to point out that the Coyotes are a ridiculous 20-1 when leading at the first intermission. Just sayin'. Shots in the first were 9-6 Hurricanes, but the Canes didn't convert their chances and the Coyotes did, which explains the scoreboard. (Or, if you're the glass half full type, it means they're due for a letdown. Your choice.)
1:20 2nd: The Canes have had three shifts since the start of the period, and every shift has resulted in a high-quality scoring chance. You think something rather impolite might have been said in between periods in the home locker room?
7:30 2nd: The Canes are on their first power play of the night, and it's obvious now why the Coyotes are 18 games over .500. Their penalty killing is outstanding, and even when they give up good chances (like Brian Pothier's late in the man advantage) they're in perfect position to prevent the Canes from getting to the rebound. The Canes have thrown everything at Ilya Bryzgalov in the first seven-plus minutes of the period and have come up short.
13:00 2nd: Shots in the period so far are 8-3 Carolina, but the Coyotes are looking like the mid-90s Devils in the defensive zone and the Canes are starting to get frustrated. Compounding matters is the fact that Tim Gleason has gone to the locker room for reasons unknown.
13:50 2nd: Coyotes lead 3-0; Hanzal 9 (Doan, Aucoin) I have no idea how that puck went in. Martin Hanzal somehow got behind two Carolina defenders and knocked home a pass from Shane Doan that flew up about 20 feet in the air. Probably the strangest pass you'll see all day, and it reiterates the Devils comparison: the Coyotes are taking advantage of any break they get, no matter how innocuous it is.
19:01 2nd: After a hard hit along the boards on Brett Carson from Taylor Pyatt, the Canes earn their second power play of the night and the Coyotes are lucky it wasn't a two man advantage, because after the play Vernon Fiddler got a couple of licks in on Zach Boychuk (of all people) and very easily could have earned a roughing penalty to put the Coyotes down two men.
End 2nd: The Canes will have just over a minute left on Pyatt's penalty to start the third, and they desperately need to score. Gleason returned late in the period, and it looked like it was just an equipment issue after all. Shots in the second were 14-6 Carolina, but the Coyotes have thorougly earned their 3-0 lead.
1:00 3rd: Ilya Bryzgalov has earned his paycheck tonight. Two spectacular saves on a Canes 5-on-3 have kept the home team off the scoreboard, first stoning Rod Brind'Amour from point-blank then doing a split while flashing a glove out to deny Joni Pitkanen. And yes, that was quite painful to look at.
2:45 3rd: Coyotes lead 3-0; Hanzal 10 (Michalek) The opportunistic Coyotes strike again. Brett Carson had the puck on his backhand deep in the Coyotes' zone and was pickpocketed by Zbynek Michalek, who started a rush that ended with a cross-ice pass to Martin Hanzal. Hanzal fired it home from 50 feet tbefore Peters had a chance to get over, and the Coyotes' 20-1 record when leading after 1 appears mighty safe.
11:30 3rd: The Devils comparisons are really hitting the mark right now. I don't think the Canes have played a team all year that's as defensively stifling as we've seen the Coyotes tonight. You can tell that the Canes are getting antsy because they haven't scored yet, and barring a miracle they have no prayer to come back on a team that's playing this well.
End 3rd: No surprise here: Bryzgalov came up big over and over again, and Paul Maurice never even bothered to pull Peters as the game approached its end. Shots in the third were 8-6 Coyotes, and much like Peters was the difference against Pittsburgh, Bryzgalov was a big part in why the Coyotes improved to 21-1 when leading after the first period.
Postgame: Paul Maurice was reluctant to admit this, but the game seemed to fall into the same category that so many games early in the season resulted in: every time the Canes made a mistake or fell asleep at the switch, the puck was in the back of their net within a few seconds. That's not a knock on Justin Peters, who could have reasonably been expected to only make one save out of the four goals, the first one that was a result of not quite covering the post. Anyone who's ever played goal has made that mistake, so it's not fair to hang too much on that one shot.
That said, it's now three straight games where the Canes have gone down 2-0, and while they've gone 2-1 in that stretch they can't afford to keep spotting the opposition a two-goal lead. Not with under a month to go in the regular season.
Click for audio from Jussi Jokinen and Justin Peters. Paul Maurice's press conference is attached.
The Canes will be back at it on Tuesday, and if a game against the eighth-place Boston Bruins with a month left in the season and an eight-point deficit doesn't define "must-win game" then you probably think that there are no such things. There won't be a live blog for the game, as your humble reporter has a meeting to go to and likely won't get to the arena until the 3rd period, but we'll be there for postgame reaction, so swing by after the game and we'll have all the details.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
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